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Olivia Verik-El Aventine and Great House Aventine
''' '''Name: '''Olivia Verik-El Aventine '''Race: Cyrod-Nibanese Gender: Female Age: 24 Eye Color: Grey '''Physical Appearance: '''At the age of only twenty four, Olivia Verik-El Aventine stands as a stunning testimate to the selective pruning practices of the Aventine family’s withering family tree. Standing 6’3 with a slender figure, petite waist and sharp angular features Olivia is considered to have slyish good looks that stem in part from her families heritage as one of the few noble families that can trace their lineage clearly back to Reman Cyrodill and the integration of the Taeseci into Cyrodillic society. Trace amounts of Taeseci blood and secretive, if uncouth, breeding tendencies within the family have ensured the purity of the blood line, leading Olivia to have a prominent and sharp jaw line coated with soft olive skin that have long characterized members of her family. Her eyes are most defined by a pair of cool grey irises that remenense of a predators cool gaze framed by a set of thin and wispy eyebrows shelved just above them and a slender nose dividing the two orbs before reaching down to her lips, which are full and outlined with traditional Nibanese tattooed ‘makeup’ that outline her lips as well as her eyes. Her hair, unique in dress compared to most cosmopolitan Cyrodiil, is a deep red that flows down her neck and back in a weaved braid that ends in what one could only describe as a series of bulbed rattles that cease half way down her back. Olivia’s face also bares numerous other tattoos, including dual wisps that reach out from the far corners of her eyes, dagger likes stripes that streak across the bottom of her jaw and pint towards the crown of her nose as well as various other tattoos that cover her body. The most definitive marks a found on her wrists that coil around her arms like vipers ending with the open mouths of cobra out stretched on her palms, proudly showing off her ancient heritage from a time long since past. Olivia is most often seen wearing linens of Ancestor Moth silk in the traditional Nibian fashion. Her cloths are often lanky, finding a healthy medium between form fitting and loose cloth with often change in markings that shift to tell various stories of her families’ history. Along with her typical dress, Olivia is never present without a dark gem with a ruby center around her neck known as the Avantis el-Dula (The Heart of Avatenia), a black soul gem that holds the souls of every past matriarch of the Aventine Family. The center piece is long said to be a shard from the original Amulet of Kings, and the Aventine family has always employed the binding of souls much in the same fashion that the Septims have. Persona Olivia has the honor of being born into one of the oldest and most prestigious families in Cyrodiil, being able to clearly trace her lineage back to the days of Remen Cyrodiil and the unification of the nation under the name of the man who conquered it. That honor however did not extend by virtue fortune, for despite having an ancient name and the clout that comes with it she was born a sole survivor of a twin birthing and great disappointment to a family in desperate need of a male heir carry on the family name. Centuries of secretive and selective breeding of siblings and faux marriages to other nobility had ensured a pure bloodline to a family obsessed with maintaining its heritage through blood at all cost; indeed, the central name of ‘Verik’ continues to prove as an outward show of their perceived superiority of having been one of the remaining families to embrace the Taeseci of Akavir into their culture. Olivia, the eighth Aventine child born to Claudia and Merik Aventine was the only one not still-born at birth, and to further darken her birth she was a twin of whom doctors proclaimed she strangled her brother to death with their umbilical cord in the womb. Olivia’s upbringing would be one of much despair in the face of the families’ imminent demise, yet one of intense upbringing. At an early age she was taught the name of every Emperor of the Empire as well as the each major Cyrodillic family in Kingdom. She was groomed to be a perfect bride and wife, yet instilled with the tools needed for her to survive the brutal world of Nibian and Imperial politics. Fortunes continued to wither when the Oblivion Crisis hit and her families’ home was nearly completely destroyed in the attack and her father was killed attempting to defend the homestead. Sequential razing in the country side and slaughter of many of the peasants who tilled their farms led to a sharp decrease in their cotton revenues, of which they owned hundreds of acres of the heart of the Nibian basin. The following rise of the Dominion and loss of Elsewyer as an Imperial province further crushed the family, having compromised the majority of their copper mines and put excess strain on the already struggling family business. At the dawn of the 4th Era Olivia stands as the head of a dying house as her mothers is taken ill with Red Sickness, leaving her in charge of her families crumbling estate and a drive to see her family return to their proper place, no matter the cost. The Great House of Aventine "NIE GO JAVADEVME DA STANE TOA” ~WE ATE IT TO BECOME IT~ ~ an Excerpt from the eight great houses of cyrodiil; Chapter ii: The house of cotton and copper ______________ The House of Aventine lays claim as one of, if not the oldest, of the noble Cyrodiilic Houses left in existence since the beginning of the 2nd Empire of Man. With a clear line of lineage dating back to the begining of the Remen Empire, the Aventine claim is oft than not met with little resistance among the other Great Houses of Cyrodiil. Indeed, such an ancient name is one tied extensively with the early development of the Reman Imperial Court, and is associated with one of most stable and lucrative staples of the Cyrdoiilic economy; textiles. It can be said with little embellishment that very little leaves the Starry Heartland in the form of silk or cloth that does not bear too familiar viper sigil of the Avantas House Trading Company, the mercantile face of the Aventine House, and with it the influence of Cyrodills powerful economy. To understand the clout and prestige that comes with the Aventine family name, one must understand their claim to fame. It is lightly debated amongst cretin circles that the Aventine family was instrumental in the formation and early dealings of the Remen Cyrodiilic Court, and with it, the structure of which future Empires would build their system of government and citizenry around. Aventine is in fact a Reman-era bastardization of the Ancient Nedic/Nibanese name Avantas, which is rooted in even older heritage supposedly dating back to the time St. Alessia and in particularly, the Men-of-Ket. The current incarnation of the family name was officially adopted soon after the Battle of Pale Pass when Remen Cyrodiil stood victorious over the Taeseci horde and began the conscription of Taeseci mercenaries into the Reman Legions. Markus Kent Avantas, Patriarch of the then Avantas family was killed in the battle and as legend has it was consumed by his adversary -- a Taeseci warrior by the name of Valisidus Verik, who was said to have devoured his adversary in honor of his foes prowess as a warrior is often given to this moment as the reasoning behind the Aventine families mantra ‘We ate it to became it’ along with its ties with Taeseci mythology Much debate is centered around whether or not Valisidus literally devoured the physical body Markus Avantas, but legend contends that either symbolically or literally Valisidus consumed his fallen foe in a ritual that gave him ‘claim’ over his adversaries belonging, including that of his wife and property. Valisidus then ventured to Cyrodiil with the remains of Remen’s army to claim his spoils and married Amiliarius Avantas, to which they bequeathed nine children, six of which were girls. Over the course of the Remen Dynasty the Avantas family became known as House Aventine which consisted of over six minor houses that were ‘consumed’ by the growing influence of the fast rising Aventine family. Soon the Avantas House Trading Company was established in the Imperial City as a cotton and silk textile trading company. Hundreds of acres of central Nibany Basin were cultivated into rolling fields of cotton while water powered textile factories and Moth nurseries sprung up along key tributaries that catapulted the Aventine family further into wealth and prestige. The discovery of massive depots of copper in southern Cyrodiil near the border of Elsweyr by Avantas caravaners soon found the Avantas moniker on many common household items, jewelry and pieces of machinery throughout the growing Empire and opened up the second arm of the Aventine coin mill. Further investment in the copper industry led to the ownership of over thirty percent of the copper mines discovered in Elsweyr and sixty percent of the copper mines in Cyrodiil. It wasn’t long before House Aventine became synonymous with another name; The House of Cotton and Copper. Valisidus and his heirs, Lavitus, Emarikus and Salvadikus would rule the Aventine family until the end of the Remen Dynasty with each of them fathering generations of Aventine children that ensured the survival of the family well into the eventual rise of Tiber Septim. One of the most controversial accusations levied against the Aventine family was that of inbreeding sibling, in which rival families attempted to use to discredit everything from Aventine business ventures to influence in the Elder Council. Such charges ended in no action being taken against the family as no concrete proof of such dealings could be found. In fact many families within the Imperial City could attest to having at least one Aventine descendent within their family, this especially so for the Aventine minor houses. These accusations largely ceased after Valisidus, Lavitus, Emarikus and Salvadikus were killed during the 1st Integrum and Lady Claudia Verik-El Aventine rose to the head of the Aventine family and overshadowed her male compatriots. It is here that we first catch glimpse of the Avantas El-Dula, a soul gem encased as an amulet that was revealed to hold the soul of every Avantas and Aventine matriarch known, fashioned much in the likeness that the Septim Emperors would come to bind their souls to the Amulet of Kings. The rise of Tiber Septim and the relative stability of his heirs have seen the Aventine family further profit….. Excerpt . Category:Characters